the power to make time stand still, retreat or fly into the future...

I'll be fairly quiet until next Wednesday, as I have heaps of study to do for upcoming exams, but I wanted to do a quick post. I also need to use up some of the photos I took the other day before I go on my next photo hunt.

I'd really like to take a little camera with me everywhere, but my sister won't let me borrow hers. Mine bit the dust a while ago, so I'm currently deciding on a new one. I'd like a really good one, however I think since my photos are pretty amateur anyway, I'll just got for a small digital one under the $200 mark.I can't wait for the holidays. There are so many people I need to catch up with after this busy semester, plus I have a list of lists of things to do. I have lists for books to read, movies to watch, things to make and creative projects to start and finish, songs to learn on piano and guitar and stuff to do for my dad's business, mostly marketing strategies, etc.

I've taken to killing time in bookshops recently, such as on Tuesday when I had an hour to spare before work. I will probably borrow most of these books rather than buy them, but I note down any titles that look good in my phone drafts.

Here is the current list, which I won't get done in the holidays, but maybe by the end of the year.

I'm just going to make this post about books, hence the title, which was Jim Bishop, on books.

To Read

The Picture of Dorian Gray - currently reading, and loving it.

Love in the Time of Cholera - need to finish, started ages ago

The one that flew over the cuckoos nest

A Clockwork orange

Wuthering Heights

Persuasion

The Happiness Hypothesis - Jonathan Haidt. Self help books on happiness usually don't interest me as I generally associate them with a mid-life crisis, however a comment about why journalists are generally unhappy caught my interest. I'd be interested in what he has to say, it won't change my mind on journalism, but it would be interesting. Plus, they say forewarned is forearmed.

The Female Brain - Louise Brizendine. I wouldn't have thought that this would interest me either, and I can't remember what it was now, but something in the blurb sparked my interest.

Hector and the Search for Happiness- Francoise Lelord . I notice that there is a happiness theme, and again, this sort of title is normally a deterrernt, however the blurb interested me when it mentioned travelling around the world, and what makes us happy and what makes us sad. Guess I'm a sucker for travel-writing? Here is the blurb:

"Hector is a successful young psychiatrist. He’s very good at treating patients in real need of his help. But many people he sees have no health problems: they’re just deeply dissatisfied with their lives. Hector can’t do much for them, and it’s beginning to depress him.

So when a patient tells him he looks in need of a holiday, Hector decides to set off round the world to find out what makes people everywhere happy (and sad), and whether there is such a thing as the secret of true happiness…Narrated with deceptive simplicity, its perceptive observations on happiness offer us the chance to reflect on the contentment we all look for in our own lives. "

I just read a review of it at

http://vulpeslibris.wordpress.com/2010/01/20/hector-and-the-search-for-happiness-by-francois-lelord/,

which comments that

"this book is really quite funny. Dryly funny. It also has a genuine edge to it, with on-the-button observations about human beings and the way they think and behave"

Interesting, no? Cute cover, too.

The woman who fell from the sky - Jennifer Steil. This is about a western woman who moves to Yemen, one of the oldest and most conservative Muslim cities in the world, and her experiences as she becomes editor at a Yemen newspaper. I either want to be an investigative journalist or a magazine editor, so I think this memoir would be really interesting.

Hearts and Minds - Amanda Craig

The girl who kicked the Hornet's nest - steig larsson. I just realised this is the final book in his trilogy, which starts with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, of which a film adaptation has just been released in Australia. So I should start at the start I guess.

Love in a Cold Climate - Nancy Mitford . Good old $10 Popular Penguins does it again.

I just noticed, at least three of these authors are or were journalists ( Jennifer Steil, Amanda Craig and Steig Larrson) and another book also touches on journalism. If nothing else, hopefully the writing will be a good influence.